We have arrived.

We’re here, in the place we have dubbed our “new normal”. It happened SO much faster than I EVER could have hoped. This is such a testament to the love that Bubbles received prior to coming to us. She wasn’t always dealt with the way I would have, but we all parent differently, and I don’t know that I’m doing it right either. She was obviously held in infancy and loved. She was obviously taught that you can trust your caregivers. She was told she was special and beautiful, because the girl has NO issues with self-confidence. She needed time to adjust, to grieve the loss of everything she knew. But, she’s doing it.

We’re done with the fits that almost broke us. We’re over the “gimmes”. I can be sure now that what we’re experiencing is normal almost 3-year-old behavior. We have the occasional melt down, but I employ the same love and logic methods that I employ with the other kids. And, she gets it. Yesterday she was gifted a dolly high chair. She calls it her “baby seat, for me to give mine babies coco”. She ADORES her babies. She is loving to them the way she was loved. The whole way home from the toy store she held the box with the “baby seat” in it and talked to us “mama says I will open it at home. I will open it with my babies”. She got home and RAN downstairs. We opened and put together her “baby seat”. She couldn’t wait to show her brothers who were at school. “GigantoBaby will play with me, when he is home from school”. She has bonded with her new siblings in a way I never could have imagined. She is so loving and happy to be with them. She misses them when they are gone. She is proud of them. Later in the evening she broke the rules and her “baby seat” privileges were revoked. She came to me and said “I lose a my baby seat because I scream and kick”. Yes, yes you did. But, it struck me as an interaction that I would have had with any of my kids at her age. You can see in her eyes this want to understand the rules. She wants to figure out why we make these requirements of her. And, when we explain it in words she can understand, she will repeat it back to us later. She gets it. And, I get it so much more because of her.

You’ve made me a better mom, my BubblyGirl. I love you more than words can say.